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appears to me so great a liberty, that I should very much hesitate to conform to it without episcopal authority; yet I do think, that as the rubric is entirely silent, and ancient usage altogether against the alteration of the feast of St. Matthias from the 6th of the Kalends, the case is one which the Bishop's authority is competent to decide. The injunction of Abp. Sancroft, to which your correspondent alludes, cannot, I conceive, be supposed to have had any weight, except during his own lifetime; and although the practice which he authorized is not exactly that which I think ought to have been enjoined, yet his authority goes far to persuade me that it was the practice intended and prescribed by our present calendar. I. H.T.

MARTIN OF TOURS.

SIR, I must give some answers to the queries put to me in your note to page 163. As the number lies on the table of your subscribers, I do not waste your space by transcribing them.

I will first observe, that there are not many matters of assertion in history. Unfortunately it has not enough of certainty. What are assertions in form, are in substance expressions of opinion. Our taste must guide us (and mine may often misguide me) as to multiplying, or making fewer, the phrases expressive of opinion, persuasion, or the like. Since the cases are few in which they are not implied, they are (in some sense) generally superfluous.

We can of course prove nothing in history, because, in one sense, no one can prove anything in that branch of study; but I can shew, on fair grounds, that the belief to which you allude is the right one to form.

Nothing could be more absurd, as you well suggest, than to found, upon a construction of the Gennadian notice of S. Severus's life, a conclusion that the said life was, in a particular respect, vicious; and then to argue, from the same viciousness of life thus arrived at, that the aforesaid construction ought to be put upon the story, as told by Gennadius. "Where we can stop in history upon this principle,' Heaven only knows. But nothing of that sort ever entered my contemplation.

To shew the system of imposture which had been practised by Martinus and his confederate, I appealed to the works of the latter as a very sufficient and damning testimony, to which it may be useful to add the history of Gregorius, and his highly mysterious legend of Martinus in his " Opera Pia." While quoting a few sad things out of them, I disclaimed then, as now, the intention of "analyzing and commenting upon the documents of Martin's life and machinations," or, in other words, of occupying half a number of your magazine in answer to a few hasty lines.

• Any one that would faithfully translate the whole, (except that earlier part of "H. Sacra," which is a mere epitome of scripture,) would throw the fullest light. upon these characters.

I considered those documents as such a manifest and brazen monument of untruth, that it was nearly sufficient to refer the rev. gentleman who had taken up the point to them. The case which they present is one calculated to convict of moral falsehood, unless their material truth were to be received. Very few persons will be found (protestants) who will be inclined to bestow much doubt upon that subject.

When, however, S. Severus relates the account which his friend Posthumian gave of his visit to the solitudes of Upper Egypt and their eremites, and states, on Posthumian's authority, that, as he was walking in company with one of those solitaries, the latter gathered from a date tree the attigua ramis humilioribus poma, we are tempted to ask whether either of those Martinists had ever seen the picture of a date tree, or was acquainted with its growth and structure, and the mode of obtaining its fruit. The wild lion, who happened to be lying under it, " modestly withdrew."

I am not disposed to entertain the alarming idea, that such books are likely to obtain credit in the country, or that many (if any at all) will hesitate to coincide with the opinion that Posthumian tells Severus he had heard expressed, "te in illo libro tuo plura mentitum."

At all events, his works were my premises, from which (declining a lengthened comment upon them) I concluded that that author's life had been, in great part, one of impious fraud. In consequence of the remark (from St. Martin's parish) concerning repentance, I simply observed that none was attributed to Martin, but that Severus's was on record, though not ascribed to its principal cause.

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Then, if you please, we will see how it stands. Being such a man as above concluded, he ended his days on the Loire, in the deepest remorse, evinced by the dreadful penance of voluntary taciturnity, agnoscens loquacitatis culpam, silentium usque ad mortem tenuit.' (Genn. de Viris Ill., c. 19.) The account which reached Gennadius at Marseilles, about seventy years afterwards, or which he thought fit to give, was, that he had repented of having been "deceived by the Pelagians." Their tenets consisted in abstract error concerning the nature of original sin. The subject was doctrinal and difficult, and the heresiarchs so specious and highly gifted as to impose upon the see of Rome itself, not to say over synods and councils, and to spread their misconstructions of baptism and salvation far and wide. Thousands embraced, and in a maturer hour abandoned, the error. It was a doctrinal lapse to regret, to avoid in future, to retract, disavow, and preach against, and do anything but keep silence. Did Augustin become a mute when he left the impure tents of the Manichees, to whom we would not compare Pelagians? The behaviour attributed to S. Severus is absurd, inapplicable to his alleged circumstances, inconsistent with a remembrance of the history of St. Paul, and scarcely credible: it seems to confound sin with crime, and, I may almost say, error with sin. The sentence imposed by himself or his penitentiary, was one of those which were adapted to purge (if it

might be so) the worst deeds of which remorse can extort from shame the acknowledgment. Did we know nothing at all about him, save what those few lines tell us, they would still be unsatisfactory, and reason would whisper to us, that we were reading (as we often do) a half-told tale.

But since we know what his great loquacitatis culpa had really been, when we see it before us horrible, it is not difficult to substitute the adequate and appropriate cause for that one which at present does not rationally account for the effect. If we do not know that, we can scarcely be said to know anything securely, or to have any grounds remaining upon which to disbelieve anything that is said upon any subject. And if we do know it, the conclusion, that he repented in anguish and self-inflicted misery of unintentional mistakes, and of "being deceived," to the exclusion of these crimes, would be unreasonable and preposterous, against weight of evidence and probability of truth."

The idea, that he ended his days in silence, by way of penance, without making retractation or confession, may be dismissed at once, as it is inconsistent with the known laws of the Christian church. But if it was made, and not generally made known, and an irrelevant matter put forward in its place, then it was stifled. Had it not been stifled, the pest of Essenian, Origenian, Antonian monkery in Gaul must have been stopped in its outset; but it continued to flourish and rebound, which shews that means were found to suppress the true causes of the old man's unhappy (though desirable) state. To do so was the more easy, since the Martinists were, in a spiritual way, demagogues-clamour and the people were at their command. And it was, therefore, also the more necessary, as they were upheld by a power which, if fully undeceived, might be exasperated even to the destruction of their lives.

Upon the whole matter, those whom it interests must examine and judge for themselves. My object is to shew that these opinions, right or wrong, have been arrived at, in the due order of deduction, from apparent facts to strong resulting probabilities. H.

MOORE'S HISTORY OF IRELAND.

LETTER V.

SIR, It is my purpose in the present communication to identify the doctrines professed in the creed found in the "Confession of St. Patrick," with the tenets which Pelagians and semi-Pelagians maintained, in opposition to the orthodox of their day and generation. If I succeed in doing this, Mr. Moore and other Romanists will be under the necessity either of disconnecting their patron-saint from all pretensions to the authorship of the creed in question, or of admitting that he was what the church of Rome then esteemed a heretic. It is to be borne in mind, too, that I am not concerned in the discussion of

the truth or heresy of a single clause of the creed itself, but simply in the decision of the question as to the accordance or dissonance of the doctrines here professed by St. Patrick with the opinions which the church of Rome then reputed to be orthodox. Preliminary to this it will be necessary to observe, that Pelagius and his followers had no disagreement with the orthodox respecting the doctrines of the Trinity. We find, for instance, that Julian (an Italian bishop, who was ultimately the leader of the Pelagian sectarians, and under whose auspices their heresy received considerable modifications,) enumerates the names of the principal anti-Trinitarian leaders, as those of persons whose doctrines were to be held in detestation. (Libell. Fidei a Julian. Missus, &c. Mercator. Opera, edid. Garner, p. 322, Paris, 1673.) It will be no matter of surprise, therefore, if such portions of Pelagian confessions of faith as refer to the Trinity should, like the creed of St. Patrick, seem to be drawn up in manifest opposition to the blasphemies which were then current respecting the Divine nature. It may be stated, also, that the different confessions of faith which were put forth by Pelagius and his disciples, having been collected by Garnier in his edition of the "Works of Marius Mercator," the contemporary of Augustine, the references hereafter given will be to Garnier's "Dissertations," as reprinted in the twelfth volume of St. Augustine's "Works," Antwerp, 1703.

Let us now proceed to place the several clauses of what is received as the creed of the Romish apostle of Ireland in juxta-position with the tenets of those whom the church of Rome held to be impugners of "the gospel of the grace of God."

St. Patrick.

"Non est alius Deus, nec unquam fuit, nec erit post hunc præter Deum Patrem, ingenitum sine principio, a quo est omne principium, omnia tenentem:et hujus Filium Jesum Christum, quem cum Patre scilicet fuisse semper testamur, ante originem seculi spiritualiter apud Patrem inerrabiliter genitum ante omne principium; et per ipsum facta sunt visibilia et invisibilia;"

Pelagian Creeds.

"Unus est Deus. . . . sine principio sine fine.... hoc quod est, semper et idem erit, conditor omnium, potestatem habens."-Aug. Oper. tom. xii. p. 191.

"Non autem quia dicimus genitum a Patre Filium Divina et ineffabili generatione, aliquod tempus adscribimus, sed nec Patrem dicimus aliquando cæpisse, nec Filium."-p. 210.

"Est autem Filius in Patre. . . . ut sine principio in eo qui sine principio si enim omnia per ipsum facta sunt cum omnibus autem etiam principium habetur et ipsius principii. . Verbum ipsum est caput et causa. pp. 192, 193.

It may here be remarked that both the creed of St. Patrick and those of Pelagius or his disciples have, in the clauses quoted, manifest reference to those Arian dogmas in which it was concluded "that God did not always exist as the Father, and consequently that the Son did not always exist with him;" and "that as all things were created out of nothing, the Son of God also proceeded out of nothing, and that there was therefore a time when the Son did not exist."

....

St. Patrick.

". . . . dedit ille omnem potestatem super omne nomen, cœlestium et terrestrium quem credimus et expectamus adventum ipsius, mox futurus Judex vivorum et mortuorum qui reddet unicuique secundum facta sua.

Pelagian Creeds.

"Accepta ergo a Patre omnium potestate, quæ in cœlo sunt et in terra, venturus est ad judicium vivorum et mortuorum, ut et justos remuneret, et puniat peccatores."—p. 210.

"Quod autem Christus judicaturus vivos ac mortuos docet aperte beatus Paulus sic dicens: omnes enim nos manifestari oportet ante tribunal Christi, ut recaptet quisque propria corporis prout gessit sive bonum sive malum.”—p. 206.

What a Pelagian understood by "every man receiving according to the deeds done in the body," will be best illustrated by the following declaration from the "Libellus Fidei," put forth by Julian :"Peccatores sumus non quia non valemus sed quia negligimus vitare peccatum. Ideoque statuta judicii dies est, ut et bonus de labore præmium capiat, et de contemptu malus supplicium non evadat." Farther on he proceeds to say that they altogether deny original sin, by what term soever it may be designated; and then attempts to prove from Scripture the falseness of such a doctrine, by producing certain quotations from the Old Testament, after which he adds,"Et apostolus Omnes nos manifestari oportet. sire malum,"

(p. 221,) as another Scripture authority against the doctrine of original sin.

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St. Patrick.

infundit in nobis abunde Spiritus Sancti donum, et pignus immortalitatis-"

Pelagian Creeds.

"Qui nobis dedit pignus Spiritus ut sciamus quia templum sui Spiritus perire non patitur."-Pelag. in 2 Cor. v. 5. Aug. Oper. tom. xii. p. 387.

Hitherto it will have been observed, that scarcely any sentiment has been produced which, when taken in its literal acceptation, might not be subscribed to by any orthodox Christian; but as interpreted by the next clause of St. Patrick's creed, all that precedes will bear no meaning but such as is attached to parallel expressions in those heretical confessions of faith which have been quoted. It is in what follows that the author of the Creed ascribed to the apostle of Ireland betrays the school to which he belonged.

St. Patrick.

qui facit credentes et obedientes ut sint filii Dei Patris et cohæredes Christi."

Pelagian Creeds.

"Venit [Christus] ut sibi credentes adoptionem largiretur, regnique cœlorum hæreditatem."- Rufin. Syrus August. Oper. xii. p. 301.

"Filii suo non pepercit sed pro nobis illum tradidit; pollicens quia si voluissemus deinceps voluntati ejus obedire, unigeniti sui præstaret nos esse cohæredes." -Julian, p. 302.

Now, as was observed in a former communication, it is on the sentiment here embodied that "the semi-Pelagian controversy hinged."

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